Metered Access

Crain's Detroit Business is a metered site. Print and digital subscribers have unlimited access to stories, but registered users are limited to eight stories every 30 days. After viewing three metered stories, you'll be asked to register or log in. After eight more stories in 30 days, you'll be asked to subscribe.

Sentio LLC

Photo by COURTESY OF SENTIO LLC
Sentio LLC’s MMG nerve-mapping technology is used primarily in spinal surgery but can be used for other procedures.

Sentio LLC

Location: Southfield

Co-founder and COO: Chris Wybo

Grant and equity funding: $3 million to launch company since 2007

Sentio LLC in Southfield has used automotive industry technology to create a nerve-mapping tool that allows surgeons to avoid contact with nerves during minimally invasive surgery.

"It's like a stud finder for nerves," said Chris Wybo, co-founder and COO of Sentio. "You don't want to cause pain and disruption to normal healthy tissue when performing surgery. By using this device, there is less scarring, less blood loss, less infection and a quicker recovery."

While Sentio's MMG, or mechanomyography, is used primarily for spine surgery, it can be used for ear, nose and throat surgery, pain management and minimally invasive trauma surgery.

Wybo, who has a background in mechanical and biomedical engineering, helped design the sensor with the company's CEO, Stephen Bartol, an orthopedic spine surgeon at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Sentio is the first real application of MMG for monitoring the mechanical response of muscle, Wybo said. The core technology of the device is the accelerometer, which is responsible for deploying airbags in a car crash and allowing smartphone screens to quickly turn from horizontal to vertical. It also has uses in the electronic game industry.

The technology for the Sentio MMG first came to light in the 1990s but was too bulky and expensive for practical use in the medical world. The technology was refined in 2007 after being tried out at Wayne State University.

After a small incision is made during surgery, the smart sensor is placed in the skin and establishes a safe path for surgeons so they can avoid "the minefield of nerves" that surrounds the spine. The Sentio MMG provides literal stop-and-go signals on a computer while the surgery is performed.

Since 2007, the firm has raised $3 million from friends and family to launch the product. And it will take another six to nine months to raise an additional $8 million to commercialize the Sentio MMG, Wybo said.

The device has FDA approval and is being used at Henry Ford, Ann Arbor-based University of Michigan Health System, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. and Ann Arbor-based St. Joseph Mercy Health System hospitals, and is pending approval for use at the Detroit Medical Center. The company is beginning to obtain clients outside of Michigan as well.

Sentio has 13 employees that it has drawn from both the automotive and medical industries.

"The talent in Southeast Michigan is second to none in what we are trying to do," Wybo added.